Some great tips for new birdwatchers
A NUMBER of readers have asked for some tips on general bird-watching, so, over the coming weeks I will include a few features just for beginners.
Hopefully the more experienced among you will be satisfied with a few beautiful pictures, like the wonderful sparrowhawk seen here.
You don’t need to know anything about birds to enjoy watching them.
Whether you’re watching small birds coming to your bird table, or big birds of prey soaring hundreds of feet above your head, birds are everywhere.
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need expensive equipment or expert knowledge.
The most important ‘tools’ are your eyes and ears.
All the other things are optional.
By following simple guidelines and principles, you can learn to identify any bird you come across.
Every bird you see is different in some way and, if you want to, you can spend a lifetime learning about them.
From a personal viewpoint, I have friends who have forgotten more than I know.
Crucially with birds, size is important.
A black-and-white bird with a long tail could be either a magpie or a long-tailed tit, but there is a big difference between the two.
Size can be harder to judge than you might think, but you could try comparing the size of your bird with others around it or to a common bird which you’re familiar with.
Remember that, if you’re using binoculars, you might get a false sense of scale.
Birds come in all shapes and sizes.
There can be considerable variation, even between birds in the same family - robins and blackbirds are both thrushes.
The bird’s legs, beak and posture give very useful clues to its identity.
The shape of a bird’s beak tells you what kind of food it eats. Insectivores, such as wrens, treecreepers or warblers, have small, thin bills for picking insects from vegetation or from the bark of a tree.
Seed-eaters, like finches, sparrows and buntings, have short, stout bills for picking out seeds and opening them. A snipe has a long, thin beak which is ideal for pushing deep into mud to find small animals and birds of prey have a hooked bill for tearing flesh.
Some species - for example, crows and thrushes - have multipurpose beaks which can deal with many things.
If a bird has long, lanky legs, it’s likely that it wades around in water or mud.
At the opposite end of the scale, swifts have very short legs, as they only ever land to rear their young.
Most birds have legs that fit somewhere in-between these two extremes.
Birds with webbed feet obviously swim a lot and birds of prey have long, sharp talons.
Legs and feet give more clues to your bird’s lifestyle and to its true identity.
Fortunately, some birds’ colours mean they are straightforward to name.
Everybody knows what a robin looks like and many people could recognise a blue tit.
Greenfinches are, as their name suggests, green.
However, not all blackbirds are black young birds and females are brown.
Adult male sparrowhawks are bluish-grey above but females are brown.
A good bird book will show as many of the main different plumages as possible.
Every bird has some distinguishing features.
Check for distinctive markings.
What colour are the main parts of the bird?
Bright colours are easy to spot and remember, but the shape of the spots on a thrush’s breast could help you tell whether it’s a mistle or song thrush.
Write down details of your sightings, simple on-the-spot drawings are a great idea, but don’t rely on your memory.
Brown birds present the most problems for birdwatchers of all levels.
Unfortunately, brown is a popular colour among birds for its camouflaging properties.
This is when the bird’s other characteristics and behaviour become really useful.
Bill Oddie famously described this ‘group’ of birds as, ‘Little brown jobs.’